Meanwhile, MS is still struggling to clear first-gen Surface inventory, being forced to once again slash the price of their first Windows 8 contender. The Surface Pro, which used to go for a whopping 900 bucks and up back in the day, now starts at $699, down from $799 previously.

The 700 clams of course buy you a slate with no keyboard included and 64 GB of on-board storage, whereas the 128 GB version costs $799 solo and Touch Covers start at $79.99.

Technically, Microsoft is advertising the promo as a limited-time deal, set to expire December 31, but chances are at that time the Surface Pro won’t leap back to 800 bucks. Instead, it will likely be nixed, what with the Pro 2 looking much better and going for a starting price of $900.

Remember though that this one year-old is not exactly a pushover either, cramming oodles of pixels into a 10.6-inch IPS LCD screen (1,920 x 1,080, to be exact), packing Intel Core i5 heat, 4 GB RAM and Intel HD 4000 graphics.

Plus, there’s stylus support, an integrated flip-out kickstand and plenty of ports and connectivity options, from Wi-Fi to Bluetooth 4.0 to USB 3.0. Bottom line, while it’s in no way cheap, the Surface Pro is slowly but steadily closing in on reaching its true market value.

And who knows, maybe Black Friday or Thanksgiving will lower the pricing bar even further, making it irresistible in the eleventh hour.